What if we re-imagine schools as a “place.”

A couple of years -and even a few months ago-, higher education was rethinking, moving forward, and competing to appeal to generation Z. Colleges and Universities were looking for the latest innovative technologies to create learning environments where students from multiple disciplines and backgrounds were to come together under one roof. During those times, colleges and specifically new building program space requirements were mainly focused on attracting and creating dense classrooms, since every student enrolled in school meant more revenue for that college.

Fast forward to 2020 when the COVID-19 Pandemic emerged, swarm and shake the entire world economy and colleges were abruptly shut-down. College and universities are on the verge of the unknown since they are struggling to regain focus and come up with a plan to re-open schools. This is an unusual time, as universities are being hit financially and environmentally.

Although is a struggle to reimagine that all things will go back to “normal” we can take this opportunity to preach for a change in the education system and possibly come up with something way better than before.

What if we reimagine schools as a truly “place” to learn since the learning post-covid19 is happening in schools and eventually when the world is safe it could take place at a coffee shop, public library, grandma’s house, and even at a different city.

What if we re-imagined schools as “place” to come together in an ideal classroom size where a small group of students can interact, engage, and improve their outcomes.

What if we reimagine schools as a “place” to foster in where students have a deeper one-on-one learning engagement with their teaching coaches.

What if we reimagine schools as a “place” to welcome back and connect with the local community where potential donors can host events and add more value to the school

What if we reimagine school as a “place” where the teaching lessons will be stored on an online server and all students and community can have 24/7 access for on-the-go learning and where students can interact with other students around the world.

What if we reimagine schools as a “place” to learn, evolve, and get qualified not by traditional testing, but by a gamification program where students can have their personalized education right at their fingertips.

What if we reimagine schools as a “place” to be not only physically but emotionally safe. Financially insecure students, food-insecure students, school shootings, social differences, and now biological threads are new symptoms that show that our school system needs to evolve to overcome all these new era challenges.

Beyond all these presented challenges ideas, I am a believer that human-centered-design can help solve and address. We need to be open to new ideas and think beyond what we think is “normal”. We need to let go of the “it is not broken, it is not getting fixed” and above all the “this is how we’ve always done it,” and although, there are no instructions on how to create “good” designs for school environments we know that we need to prioritize three key things:

• What do people desire and need? (Desirable+People)
• What is technically and organizationally feasible? What are the possible technologies (Feasible+rTechnologies)
• What can be financially viable? What is the requirement to measure a successful school system? The requirement for success (viable)